I’m late to the party on this one… I should just stop saying this as it seems I am perpetually late to the party. The truth is, I swatched these a long time ago but I’ve been so backed up I haven’t had a chance to post them yet. I’m having some much-needed down time this week and it’s giving me an opportunity to catch up on posting.

I missed the little metallic-duochrome revolution sparked by Chanel Peridot. The unanimous consensus from speaking to other bloggers and collectors was that Peridot was a game changer. A few people, having no inkling of the phenomenon that would soon follow, rushed to buy back-ups of the then unique color. Now, nearly every major brand has a Peridot-like shade. There are SO many dupes, in fact, that they’ve been affectionately dubbed “peri-dupes.” In the long-long ago, I often voiced my frustration that nail polish companies failed to remarket or recreate highly sought-after discontinued shades. Although greens are common now, four years ago, getting a dark green often meant shelling out the big bucks for an older shade like NARS Zulu or OPI Jasper Jade. The frenzy caused by those colors went seemingly unnoticed (or ignored) as companies released an endless cycle of the same shimmery reds every season. The prevalence of peri-dupes seems to suggest that there may have been a shift in market strategy. The question then becomes whether the peri-duping phenomenon will be isolated only to Peridot or whether color copycating will be a new industry standard. I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I like to see inexpensive dupes of more expensive colors. I sink money on Chanel all the time, especially lately, but I rather spend less when possible. I begrudgingly passed on Peridot because I had already purchased OPI Just Spotted the Lizard. (Granted, I had to be talked down off the ledge by Scrangie because I really wanted Peridot, just for the sake of having it, even after seeing her comparison.) On the other hand, I’m troubled by the fact that since nearly every brand released a peri-dupe based shade or collection recently that also necessarily means that they did not release something new and exciting instead.

Of course, I have to wonder whether Peridot would have been so widely copied if it had been released by a less prestigious brand. Would there be so many peri-dupes if the original was Wet n Wild Peridot instead of Chanel Peridot? I think the color is unique enough that the nail polish community would have gone ga-ga over it regardless of the brand, but my guess is that there would have been no industry attention to the shade without the Chanel name attached to it.

In any case, Peridot has definitely left its mark and here are four shades from the New Bohemian Luster Chrome Collection, China Glaze’s interpretation of the metallic-duochrome trend. I only have 4 to show you. I skipped Want My Bawdy, sorry, shimmery, metallic-y medium blues don’t usually appeal to me and the name offends my Victorian sensibilities, haha. I also skipped Rare and Radiant, the China Glaze peri-dupe, for the same reason I skipped the original. You can see swatches of the whole collection on Scrangie’s blog - her post is also worth checking out because it discusses other known dupes for the colors in this collection. According to Scrangie’s post, a few shades correspond with colors by Deborah Lippmann - I can’t give much insight on that because my collection is still catching up with recent releases.

China Glaze Unpredictable, oh, love this metallic-y goodness. Unpredictable shifts from yellow-green to green to green-blue. The finish, like the other colors in this collection, is very mirrored. If you look closely you can see my camera’s reflection on my nail. As hard as I tried with my limited photography skills, I just could not capture the blue shift which is only visible at certain angles. This is 4 coats.

China Glaze Swanky Silk is a rose-toned gold duochrome. The gold is very light, as is the pink tone, which gives it an antique-like foil effect – that quality, I thought, made it office safe.

This one is more subtle than the others and not as reflective. Because the reflections are less obvious, it only slightly darkens the color on the nail, making it appear tarnished. The application was good but Swanky Silk is a bit sheer, so this mani is 4 coats.

Here’s a side shot to show the delicate pink tone.

I decided to mattify this using Rescue Beauty Lounge’s Matte Top Coat after a couple of days of wear. This look is my favorite – I think the other shades would look great mattified as well. The mattification did away with most of the duochrome and left only a very light rosy gold overall color.

China Glaze Deviantly Daring, love, love, love. In the bottle Deviantly Daring is a green to blue duo-chrome. The shift doesn’t translate as well on the nail but, still, the result is a gorgeous greenish-blue with a foil-like metallic finish. This was very tough to photograph, like the others, my camera’s reflection made the color appear much darker.

Here’s Deviantly Daring at a different angle with less reflection to show the greenish-blue. I noticed with this whole collection that the brushstrokes become less obvious as the polish dries – which is good.

Sometimes, at some angles, the color shifts from a deep blue to the more electric blue, captured above. I wore this as a full mani, this is 3 coats and one coat of Seche Vite. I scooped this one up on sale at Sally’s - it was 50% off. Woot, woot!

China Glaze No Plain Jane seems different from the other shades in this collection. In the bottle it looks like a gold to purple duochrome. During application, it looked like there was metallic purple shimmery pigment suspended in a gray toned base. On the nail it just looked like a standard shimmery purple that would sometimes shift to a more gray-toned purple. The formula was very sheer, but it was good at 3 coats.

Finally, this collection features silver caps. I suppose this was done because this is a “chrome” collection. I own several old silver capped China Glaze polishes. Despite their age, the caps are still mostly pristine – which is unique for silver caps. My older silver capped OPI bottles are getting discolored. My previous experience with China Glaze silver caps made me pretty surprised to find that the silver caps in this collection are much lower quality. I had some acetone on my fingertips and the silver actually rubbed off on my finger! C’mon China Glaze, bring back those awesome older silver caps!

What do you think about the peri-dupe phenomenon? Do you appreciate more affordable dupes of expensive colors? Or would you prefer that companies expend effort creating new colors as opposed to copying already existing shades?

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Disclosure: No Plain Jane, Swanky Silk, and Unpredictable were sent for review by China Glaze’s PR. I purchased Deviantly Daring myself. Rescue Beauty Lounge Matte Top Coat was sent for review by Rescue Beauty Lounge.

I’m kind of torn, like you. On the one hand, although I have numerous Chanels in my collection, I do like having the option of paying less. On the other hand, I appreciate it when companies come up with original ideas instead of blatantly ripping off other companies’ ideas.

Jess – I had a discussion with a wise nail polish collector on twitter recently – she theorized that the companies may not have been copying each other so much as they may have been buying the same pigment from a mass producer. That makes much more sense. I wonder…

I also got Swanky Silk, Unpredictable, and Deviantly Daring, and the only one I really liked was Unpredictable. Brushstrokes were a terrible problem for me on all of them, but I really like the matte look you used.